Buffer – How to Promote Every Piece of Content You Create (in Less Than an Hour a Day!)

Back in the old days of the Internet – that is, the late 90’s and early 2000’s – “build it and they will come” was a fantastic strategy. There were fewer people either building or visiting websites, and therefore, if you did create a website, newsletter, or e-course, it was almost a given that people interested in you would find you.

It’s how I built my first business.

I built it. They came.

Today, that is no longer the case. You’re competing not only with people who offer similar content, but over several different platforms. And if that wasn’t challenging enough, you’re competing not just with other solopreneurs and other one-person businesses, but organizations with huge human and capital resources.

How do you stand out?

One path is to promote, to market, and to figure out unique ways in which to reach your core audience.

Here is a simple gameplan to get the most traction for each piece of content you create.

Why Promoting Content is Important

If you spend time writing a piece of content, and that content only gets 1,000 readers, chances are there are one million other people in the world who can benefit from what you wrote.

Why then, would you spend more time creating content when you already have something that your ideal customers can benefit from?

Halpern has an 80/20 content strategy, that is, he spends 20 percent of his time creating it and 80 percent of his time marketing it.

While this is a fantastic strategy if you’re new and need to grow your audience quickly, content marketing experts do warn that sticking to this strategy can mean that you’re underserving your existing audience.

The only people who will create long-term business value for you is your core audience—your return readers. In fact, I think “returning readers” is the most relevant metric for business-oriented content including blogs, podcasts, videos, and even Pinterest pages.

Of course there has to be an element of promotion to help attract new readers and to help your chance of being discovered by people who want and need your content. But spending four times as much time in self-promotion verses value-creation may build traffic spikes but probably not reader loyalty.

So how can you grow your audience while still focusing on creating massive value for your existing readers and followers?

Here’s a plan: Give yourself quick wins with an automated strategy and a checklist.

We’ve whipped up one for you in this post. Read on to see how to use it.